10 ms·

One additional tip on recruiters: have a cheat sheet ready (web page or public Google doc) that answers the basic questions they'll have for you and makes clear

One additional tip on recruiters: have a cheat sheet ready (web page or public Google doc) that answers the basic questions they'll have for you and makes clear your expectations. Here's the info I ask them to provide: - Job Title and Salary - Job Description - Company Overview and Location - Steps in Hiring Process Whenever I'm emailed by a recruiter, I politely thank them for reaching out, paste the link to the cheat sheet, and invite them to review it and write back if they still think I'm a good match. It quickly separates the professionals from the wannabes. (You usually don't hear back from the wannabes.) The ones who do write back often thank me for it. I'm pretty cynical when it comes to recruiters. So I find it interesting that 3 of my last 4 jobs have come through one.

rkachowski 6y ago
Do you find that recruiters will typically give you a salary range beyond "competitive" before you've started the interview process?
- kortilla 6y ago
  You usually have to be the first mover and be willing to give them a number you’re looking for.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    This would limit your options, though.
    - d4mi3n 6y ago
      This limits options that are unwilling to meet your requirements; places you would have passed on due to insufficient salaries anyway. If you're willing to take lower salaries, lower your minimal salary requirements to receive more of them. Dictating salary reqs up front does two things: 1. Reduces time wasted on folks or orgs that don't want to pay your rate. 2. Immediately moves discussion away from a dance around salary to salary _negotiation_. Any good HR org that can't meet your salary reqs and still wants you will try to compensate in other ways (stocks, RSUs, benefits, bonuses, etc).
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        It limits your options down. If you say you're looking for $100/hour, and the recruiter was planning on giving you $150/hour…guess what offer you're going to get?
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        bird_monster 6y ago
        I have never seen this in practice (but I'm sure it happens all the time). At the places I've worked/hired, if a candidate's ask was below the bottom of the range we paid that role, we just paid them the bottom of the range (regardless of their ask). It's a win/win from a hiring perspective. You hired a candidate for the minimum you possibly could (from a budget perspective) and the candidate is grateful you didn't hire them on their bad ask. At some terrible companies even, it's harder to hire someone outside of their defined salary band. Even if you don't care about being nice or paying fairly, your life is just made easier by paying them the bottom of the range rather than dealing with HR about salary bands.
        valarauko 6y ago
        To play Devil's Advocate, and I ask as someone not in the industry (I'm in academia) - is the difference between expectations really that large? I would imagine (perhaps unreasonably) that a relatively seasoned person on the job market would have a reasonable understanding of their market value within a few percentage points - so the recruiter might be willing to pay up to $105/hour, while you low balled it at $100/hour.
        xondono 6y ago
        You’d be surprised. Specially in small/medium companies, a lot of the times businesses don’t know what they are looking for. I know of a place that was looking for a “hardware engineer with 10y experience”. The average salary for this kind of job posting is not that high, they offered way more, but that’s because the actual position was “we’re looking for someone to become COO, and we need him to understand hardware development because the rest of the team doesn’t”.
    - ivoecpereira 6y ago
      That should be the purpose I assume, unless you are in a stressing position where you would be willing to accept a lower paying job. From my experience recruiters prefer to be told the salary ranges you are looking for to no waste their time neither yours.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        Well, of course they do. That gives them more information about you "for free", which would be useful to them if your salary ask is below what they had imagined you would want.
  - mgh2 6y ago
    Never give the first number https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24588379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24588379
    - random5634 6y ago
      If you can't articulate your own sense of your worth, it's very hard to engage with someone I've found. Note - I've always given my number first (and all consultants tend to) and it's worked out fine. Note, most people don't like dealing with places that are not upfront with the number to purchase the item / time etc. So if you are selling your labor, have some sense of its value /price.
      - enriquto 6y ago
        > If you can't articulate your own sense of your worth, The concept of your "worth" as the salary that you can manage to negotiate is so stupidly backwards that I cannot express how much it makes me want to burn everything to the ground.
      - kerng 6y ago
        I dont think this has anything to do with worth - its just a good advice. There is no objective measure and you likely underestimate what you are "worth" to some companies. As a consultant it might be different because roles are different and you aren't really talking to HR at that point, e.g salary negotiation
    - saberdancer 6y ago
      Honestly I tried this every time I was interviewed. Never could get them to give the first number. I probably should have been firmer but usually the pressure of the situation led to me giving a number I would be happy with.
      - interviewer0000 6y ago
        > I tried this every time I was interviewed. Never could get them to give the first number. "I've actually done a few of these calls at this point and i know what the best practice / right move / way to play this is, so instead of me telling you what i'm looking for i'd like you to tell me the range on your hiring document:)" and just be totally silent. Worked twice for me now.
  - kerng 6y ago
    Never give a recruiter a number - there is 0 value you get out of it and it gives the company you interview for the power and you'll leave money on the table. Let them tell you. I always just say stuff like "I assume that the compensation at amazing company xyz will be competitive enough to consider"
    - iends 6y ago
      I’ve taken this strategy before, but now that I’m more senior I’ve found there are lots of positions that are not even in the right ball park that I’ll only find out after wasting a bunch of time.
      - kerng 6y ago
        Exactly! That's why they should tell you what the expected compensation is upfront. Recruiters might push more junior people more easily as well.
        nickff 6y ago
        Business relationships only work if both parties are happy; providing a number that makes you willing to work somewhere will avoid wasting time, and allow for them to adjust their expectations accordingly (i.e. fully appreciate how valuable you can be to them).
    - mdorazio 6y ago
      This is terrible, outdated advice for anyone with more than a couple years experience. The value you get out of it is not wasting everyone's time when the salary available isn't even close to high enough. Decide what your minimum compensation requirement is, increase this by some percentage that would make you happy, and give that to recruiters. You will get far more out of avoiding bullshit than you will potentially leave on the table. Additionally, remember that most independent recruiters work on some form of commission. It's in their best interest to get you more money because then they also get more money.
      - 6y ago
- klenwell 6y ago
  Yes. My cheat sheet includes a "Minimum base salary" bullet point that is much higher than my walk-away number. This anchors the discussion. I find the recruiters who get back to me are pretty open and transparent. If not, that's a sign they're probably not well connected with the company and may even simply be front-running a listing they found on a job site. On preview: what @kortilla said. I don't find it limiting since it's a number I would be happy accepting (all other things being acceptable). I'm not out to maximize my salary. I want to maximize my well-being.
- random5634 6y ago
  I do hiring (not recruiting). I generally want to understand what someone's ask is first. After that I'm usually very upfront (ie, immediate verbal feedback) on how that falls into the position vs their apparent skill set etc. If they have come in low (not uncommon for non bay area folks) I'll let them know that there are opportunities for growth beyond where they would start at. If they are someone we want we'll generally beat their ask as well to get them where they should reasonably be. Then usually there are two years of substantial pay increases. My own experience, these tend to be great folks to have on team if you can give them 3 years of nice growth. If they are too high I'm usually upfront that at that rate they'd be flat compensation wise for a number of years or that the amount is simply too high relative to skill for position and our needs. It used to be market was so tight, that if you found a great person you could go 2x what the planned budget was. Not sure if all orgs have that flex so that makes it a bit unusual.
  - steverb 6y ago
    "If they are too high I'm usually upfront that at that rate they'd be flat compensation wise for a number of years" I've heard that once before and it always puzzled me. Basically you're telling the candidate that you want to underpay them now, so you can eventually pay them what they are worth. The math is in their favor even if they don't get a raise next year. And of course, next year they will be worth more anyway because they will have another year's experience plus additional domain knowledge. I'm curious if anyone has ever fallen for that line.
    - jt2190 6y ago
      I’m unable to parse the sentence you quoted and get the same meaning. The quote is saying that the employee will be at the top of the budgeted pay range for that position, so their salary won’t grow much at all year over year. I’m unclear on where you’re getting “underpay” from. Perhaps you’re assuming that the budgeted salary is below fair market value, and there’s a vague promise to increase the budget/salary in the future? Not sure why anyone would take the position in that case.
      - 6y ago
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  The serious ones do. There are a lot of recruiters on the market. But it's really no different than the market for lawyers; the median lawyer is a very poor man but the average lawyer is rich. If they can't put a number on the table, they are probably one of those that tries to run a volume game, which I think is a bad approach for engineering. Basically spamming and not giving any info until they get their quotas. The good ones want you to get hired at a good price because they are often paid a commission on your salary. And the great ones want to keep in touch so they can cash out again once you get bored with your current job. But the spammy one will have moved on to selling used cars at this point.
  - Answerawake 6y ago
    How do you end up with a network of the good ones? I have gotten my last job through a recruiter but the process sucked. He took me and my boss for a ride financially. This was in part me not getting many callbacks from any decent companies(Im in the NJ/NYC area) so I was desperate to accept and part my current manager not knowing what he should be paying for this and that type of developer. While I love my job and my team, they won't last forever and I have wanted to escape the dreaded cycle of dealing with these terrible recruiters. Can it really be done with just getting really good in your craft or do you really have to be the well known developer that has worked at a million top tier companies? How do you find these recruiters?
    - jlj 6y ago
      > How do you end up with a network of the good ones? > I have wanted to escape the dreaded cycle of dealing with these terrible recruiters Focus on yourself. When you are in a good place yourself you will find non-terrible recruiters. And when recruiters reach out, have a copy/paste response to say thanks for reaching out. +1 bonus points if you have a friend looking for a job and you can share their LinkedIn profile in your copy/paste response. And don't run away (escape), run towards something.
      - Answerawake 6y ago
        Its not like I don't focus on improving myself. Who doesn't focus on improving themselves in this industry? You have to keep improving or else you are finished at some point. Imagine a circle of the stimulating inspiring well paid jobs and another circle filled with the painful, boring non noteworthy jobs. The circles don't overlap. Somehow through connections, impressing that one higher up or being in the right place at the right time, some can jump into the good circle and never have to look back while everyone else is stuck. That does not mean all the people in the bad circle are bad developers. I have seen with my own two eyes a lot of brilliance(I know its just my word so you'll just have to believe me) but they are still stuck in that bad circle. I love this inspiring response but someone who is on the outside trying to claw their way in cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. I guess its a self fulfilling prophecy, don't run away and there is a chance in the distant future you jump into that other circle but if you don't try you have exhausted any chance. But what if you spend all that effort trying never do? What have you sacrificed in order to end up failing to get into that other circle?
- psanford 6y ago
  If you get recruiter emails for positions that are not interesting to you, just ask for the salary range. A lot of recruiters won't give it to you but some will.
- scoot_718 6y ago
  If all they say is "competitive" then they're refusing to compete on salary.
hoka-one-one 6y ago
> Job Title and Salary "Compensation will depend on your experience"
- vsareto 6y ago
  Can be bypassed by changing that to "Salary Range for this position"
  - deathanatos 6y ago
    "Highly-competitive within the market" I have had very little luck getting a recruiter to supply a range. I've had a few, but they are few and far between. I've also had a few that I've gotten to name a range by first naming something comfortably above where I suspect their range is — to which the reply is then to talk me down to that number. (And, in the cases where I've done this, I've found out the recruiter's range was well below my own BATNA…)
    - deviation 6y ago
      If a hiring manager or recruiter gets back to me with a vague answer like this, I wouldn't be pursuing the position. Plenty of recruiters in the past were happy to give me specifics... I'm unsure why you haven't had much luck.
geuis 6y ago
We need to clarify: Sounds like you’re talking about the third party recruiters who play the numbers game and email anyone and everyone they can keyword match. In the article, the author is referring to internal recruiters who are employed by the company itself. Two very different experiences there.
- Taylor_OD 6y ago
  Yes. While many internal recruiters are not great they are typically a bit better than the average third party external recruiter. Most third party recruiter are entry level sales people who got the job right out of college and will never make a placement before moving into another career. There are very few high quality third party recruiters but the ones who are typically are very good but overworked and only serve a specific market. If you are not that market then you are a waste of time to them.
woutr_be 6y ago
Asking for - what to me seems like basic - details is something I’ve been doing every time a recruiter reaches. And honestly, maybe only 5% replies with all the requested information. If their response doesn’t come with the answers, or it’s just “let’s have a call to discuss”, I already give up and disregard them as spam.

rkachowski 6y ago

Do you find that recruiters will typically give you a salary range beyond "competitive" before you've started the interview process?

kortilla 6y ago
You usually have to be the first mover and be willing to give them a number you’re looking for.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  This would limit your options, though.
  - d4mi3n 6y ago
    This limits options that are unwilling to meet your requirements; places you would have passed on due to insufficient salaries anyway. If you're willing to take lower salaries, lower your minimal salary requirements to receive more of them. Dictating salary reqs up front does two things: 1. Reduces time wasted on folks or orgs that don't want to pay your rate. 2. Immediately moves discussion away from a dance around salary to salary _negotiation_. Any good HR org that can't meet your salary reqs and still wants you will try to compensate in other ways (stocks, RSUs, benefits, bonuses, etc).
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      It limits your options down. If you say you're looking for $100/hour, and the recruiter was planning on giving you $150/hour…guess what offer you're going to get?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - bird_monster 6y ago
        I have never seen this in practice (but I'm sure it happens all the time). At the places I've worked/hired, if a candidate's ask was below the bottom of the range we paid that role, we just paid them the bottom of the range (regardless of their ask). It's a win/win from a hiring perspective. You hired a candidate for the minimum you possibly could (from a budget perspective) and the candidate is grateful you didn't hire them on their bad ask. At some terrible companies even, it's harder to hire someone outside of their defined salary band. Even if you don't care about being nice or paying fairly, your life is just made easier by paying them the bottom of the range rather than dealing with HR about salary bands.
      - valarauko 6y ago
        To play Devil's Advocate, and I ask as someone not in the industry (I'm in academia) - is the difference between expectations really that large? I would imagine (perhaps unreasonably) that a relatively seasoned person on the job market would have a reasonable understanding of their market value within a few percentage points - so the recruiter might be willing to pay up to $105/hour, while you low balled it at $100/hour.
        xondono 6y ago
        You’d be surprised. Specially in small/medium companies, a lot of the times businesses don’t know what they are looking for. I know of a place that was looking for a “hardware engineer with 10y experience”. The average salary for this kind of job posting is not that high, they offered way more, but that’s because the actual position was “we’re looking for someone to become COO, and we need him to understand hardware development because the rest of the team doesn’t”.
  - ivoecpereira 6y ago
    That should be the purpose I assume, unless you are in a stressing position where you would be willing to accept a lower paying job. From my experience recruiters prefer to be told the salary ranges you are looking for to no waste their time neither yours.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Well, of course they do. That gives them more information about you "for free", which would be useful to them if your salary ask is below what they had imagined you would want.
- mgh2 6y ago
  Never give the first number https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24588379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24588379
  - random5634 6y ago
    If you can't articulate your own sense of your worth, it's very hard to engage with someone I've found. Note - I've always given my number first (and all consultants tend to) and it's worked out fine. Note, most people don't like dealing with places that are not upfront with the number to purchase the item / time etc. So if you are selling your labor, have some sense of its value /price.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      > If you can't articulate your own sense of your worth, The concept of your "worth" as the salary that you can manage to negotiate is so stupidly backwards that I cannot express how much it makes me want to burn everything to the ground.
    - kerng 6y ago
      I dont think this has anything to do with worth - its just a good advice. There is no objective measure and you likely underestimate what you are "worth" to some companies. As a consultant it might be different because roles are different and you aren't really talking to HR at that point, e.g salary negotiation
  - saberdancer 6y ago
    Honestly I tried this every time I was interviewed. Never could get them to give the first number. I probably should have been firmer but usually the pressure of the situation led to me giving a number I would be happy with.
    - interviewer0000 6y ago
      > I tried this every time I was interviewed. Never could get them to give the first number. "I've actually done a few of these calls at this point and i know what the best practice / right move / way to play this is, so instead of me telling you what i'm looking for i'd like you to tell me the range on your hiring document:)" and just be totally silent. Worked twice for me now.
- kerng 6y ago
  Never give a recruiter a number - there is 0 value you get out of it and it gives the company you interview for the power and you'll leave money on the table. Let them tell you. I always just say stuff like "I assume that the compensation at amazing company xyz will be competitive enough to consider"
  - iends 6y ago
    I’ve taken this strategy before, but now that I’m more senior I’ve found there are lots of positions that are not even in the right ball park that I’ll only find out after wasting a bunch of time.
    - kerng 6y ago
      Exactly! That's why they should tell you what the expected compensation is upfront. Recruiters might push more junior people more easily as well.
      - nickff 6y ago
        Business relationships only work if both parties are happy; providing a number that makes you willing to work somewhere will avoid wasting time, and allow for them to adjust their expectations accordingly (i.e. fully appreciate how valuable you can be to them).
  - mdorazio 6y ago
    This is terrible, outdated advice for anyone with more than a couple years experience. The value you get out of it is not wasting everyone's time when the salary available isn't even close to high enough. Decide what your minimum compensation requirement is, increase this by some percentage that would make you happy, and give that to recruiters. You will get far more out of avoiding bullshit than you will potentially leave on the table. Additionally, remember that most independent recruiters work on some form of commission. It's in their best interest to get you more money because then they also get more money.
    - 6y ago
klenwell 6y ago
Yes. My cheat sheet includes a "Minimum base salary" bullet point that is much higher than my walk-away number. This anchors the discussion. I find the recruiters who get back to me are pretty open and transparent. If not, that's a sign they're probably not well connected with the company and may even simply be front-running a listing they found on a job site. On preview: what @kortilla said. I don't find it limiting since it's a number I would be happy accepting (all other things being acceptable). I'm not out to maximize my salary. I want to maximize my well-being.
random5634 6y ago
I do hiring (not recruiting). I generally want to understand what someone's ask is first. After that I'm usually very upfront (ie, immediate verbal feedback) on how that falls into the position vs their apparent skill set etc. If they have come in low (not uncommon for non bay area folks) I'll let them know that there are opportunities for growth beyond where they would start at. If they are someone we want we'll generally beat their ask as well to get them where they should reasonably be. Then usually there are two years of substantial pay increases. My own experience, these tend to be great folks to have on team if you can give them 3 years of nice growth. If they are too high I'm usually upfront that at that rate they'd be flat compensation wise for a number of years or that the amount is simply too high relative to skill for position and our needs. It used to be market was so tight, that if you found a great person you could go 2x what the planned budget was. Not sure if all orgs have that flex so that makes it a bit unusual.
- steverb 6y ago
  "If they are too high I'm usually upfront that at that rate they'd be flat compensation wise for a number of years" I've heard that once before and it always puzzled me. Basically you're telling the candidate that you want to underpay them now, so you can eventually pay them what they are worth. The math is in their favor even if they don't get a raise next year. And of course, next year they will be worth more anyway because they will have another year's experience plus additional domain knowledge. I'm curious if anyone has ever fallen for that line.
  - jt2190 6y ago
    I’m unable to parse the sentence you quoted and get the same meaning. The quote is saying that the employee will be at the top of the budgeted pay range for that position, so their salary won’t grow much at all year over year. I’m unclear on where you’re getting “underpay” from. Perhaps you’re assuming that the budgeted salary is below fair market value, and there’s a vague promise to increase the budget/salary in the future? Not sure why anyone would take the position in that case.
    - 6y ago
908B64B197 6y ago
The serious ones do. There are a lot of recruiters on the market. But it's really no different than the market for lawyers; the median lawyer is a very poor man but the average lawyer is rich. If they can't put a number on the table, they are probably one of those that tries to run a volume game, which I think is a bad approach for engineering. Basically spamming and not giving any info until they get their quotas. The good ones want you to get hired at a good price because they are often paid a commission on your salary. And the great ones want to keep in touch so they can cash out again once you get bored with your current job. But the spammy one will have moved on to selling used cars at this point.
- Answerawake 6y ago
  How do you end up with a network of the good ones? I have gotten my last job through a recruiter but the process sucked. He took me and my boss for a ride financially. This was in part me not getting many callbacks from any decent companies(Im in the NJ/NYC area) so I was desperate to accept and part my current manager not knowing what he should be paying for this and that type of developer. While I love my job and my team, they won't last forever and I have wanted to escape the dreaded cycle of dealing with these terrible recruiters. Can it really be done with just getting really good in your craft or do you really have to be the well known developer that has worked at a million top tier companies? How do you find these recruiters?
  - jlj 6y ago
    > How do you end up with a network of the good ones? > I have wanted to escape the dreaded cycle of dealing with these terrible recruiters Focus on yourself. When you are in a good place yourself you will find non-terrible recruiters. And when recruiters reach out, have a copy/paste response to say thanks for reaching out. +1 bonus points if you have a friend looking for a job and you can share their LinkedIn profile in your copy/paste response. And don't run away (escape), run towards something.
    - Answerawake 6y ago
      Its not like I don't focus on improving myself. Who doesn't focus on improving themselves in this industry? You have to keep improving or else you are finished at some point. Imagine a circle of the stimulating inspiring well paid jobs and another circle filled with the painful, boring non noteworthy jobs. The circles don't overlap. Somehow through connections, impressing that one higher up or being in the right place at the right time, some can jump into the good circle and never have to look back while everyone else is stuck. That does not mean all the people in the bad circle are bad developers. I have seen with my own two eyes a lot of brilliance(I know its just my word so you'll just have to believe me) but they are still stuck in that bad circle. I love this inspiring response but someone who is on the outside trying to claw their way in cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. I guess its a self fulfilling prophecy, don't run away and there is a chance in the distant future you jump into that other circle but if you don't try you have exhausted any chance. But what if you spend all that effort trying never do? What have you sacrificed in order to end up failing to get into that other circle?
psanford 6y ago
If you get recruiter emails for positions that are not interesting to you, just ask for the salary range. A lot of recruiters won't give it to you but some will.
scoot_718 6y ago
If all they say is "competitive" then they're refusing to compete on salary.

hoka-one-one 6y ago

> Job Title and Salary "Compensation will depend on your experience"

vsareto 6y ago
Can be bypassed by changing that to "Salary Range for this position"
- deathanatos 6y ago
  "Highly-competitive within the market" I have had very little luck getting a recruiter to supply a range. I've had a few, but they are few and far between. I've also had a few that I've gotten to name a range by first naming something comfortably above where I suspect their range is — to which the reply is then to talk me down to that number. (And, in the cases where I've done this, I've found out the recruiter's range was well below my own BATNA…)
  - deviation 6y ago
    If a hiring manager or recruiter gets back to me with a vague answer like this, I wouldn't be pursuing the position. Plenty of recruiters in the past were happy to give me specifics... I'm unsure why you haven't had much luck.

geuis 6y ago

We need to clarify: Sounds like you’re talking about the third party recruiters who play the numbers game and email anyone and everyone they can keyword match. In the article, the author is referring to internal recruiters who are employed by the company itself. Two very different experiences there.

Taylor_OD 6y ago
Yes. While many internal recruiters are not great they are typically a bit better than the average third party external recruiter. Most third party recruiter are entry level sales people who got the job right out of college and will never make a placement before moving into another career. There are very few high quality third party recruiters but the ones who are typically are very good but overworked and only serve a specific market. If you are not that market then you are a waste of time to them.

woutr_be 6y ago

Asking for - what to me seems like basic - details is something I’ve been doing every time a recruiter reaches. And honestly, maybe only 5% replies with all the requested information. If their response doesn’t come with the answers, or it’s just “let’s have a call to discuss”, I already give up and disregard them as spam.